I couldn’t tell you when it exactly started or why but from a fairly early age I was drawn to games of all sorts. I’ve always enjoyed figuring out puzzles and problems and for the most part games provide new problems to solve. Along with a healthy right brain to fill in the fiction and creative gaps that may occur it really only seems like it was a matter of time from the day I was born to really begin plunging into the world of games. (Just in case you’re wondering I haven’t given up on my board game, just took a few days off from it for the costume and because I was getting a little burnt out on it, but it is just a few hours work from being at least initially playable.)This was a big one in my life. I’m not exactly sure if it was the first RPG I played but considering I would have been at least 9 when it made it’s way to the states I doubt it, but it might have been. My friend/neighbor growing up had a shiny new copy of it one day and we played it many times. I remember liking the dice aspect of it (and the fact that the ones that came with it had skulls on them) and the fact that I played a character in the game rather than a pawn like other board games. Granted unlike most RPGs the character was pre-made for me but I still liked it. I had a lot of options as far as what I wanted to do in game and that definitely appealed to me. People can make fun of RPGs as much as they like, but the experience is not one that can be likened to much else except per say an extremely immersing book, or perhaps the best possible movie you have ever seen (but for the first time). It takes the ability to be okay with thinking and saying strange things sometimes in front of complete strangers as well as not being embarrassed with the idea of doing something to this day is still sometimes kept behind closed social doors. Some people play them to be someone else but I never understood that. I mean as much as I think it would be fun to be similar to the characters I have played over the years I prefer the idea of writing stories of them as events unfurl with the game.
Anyway, somehow I was led to the wikipedia about Hero Quest tonight and it made me reminisce a bit so I thought I’d share some thought albeit a grammatical nightmare.

Making Custom Dice
So while I can run numbers and get an idea of how certain types of dice might roll, the only real way to get a sense of how they will play in the game is to make some. So I found these at Gamestation.net (also where you can buy Gamescience dice btw). They were perfect, blank and indented for stickers. They also sell the stickers for the dice but I was concerned that it would not run through a printer because it seemed like it would come pre-folded. To solve that problem I found full sheet stickers (8.5″ x 11″) at an office supply store and made some templates again in Pixlr and printed them out. Unfortunately the 19mm dice require stickers about 14.5mm square which meant a morning of cutting out 96 tiny squares. But the end result looks really good.
Now to play-test.

Arm chair game design is something I really really enjoy doing especially with other gamer friends. Designing games without a direct intention of actually making them, just theorizing and having fun. One type of game, likely because I come from an audio background, I’ve always pondered was a video game that had no visual graphics and played just using audio as the playing field. Continue reading →

DeviantArt user Joker-laugh created this fantastic custom Aliens Vs. Predator chess set. There doesn’t seem to be any details, but thankfully a number of photos have been posted online – two of which you can check out after the break. More

This is really well done, dibs on Aliens! I wonder which side is white and which is black.